What Am I Not Good At? Well, let’s see how much time we’ve got….

I’m also not great at puns

On reddit, someone asked “What are you not good at?” and after sorting through the mental Big Book of Things I’m Not Good At, er, At Which I Am Not Good , oh bother…. maybe it’s time to add grammars to it. After sorting through the list, I decided on which one I’d cover:

I feel uncomfortable accepting compliments.

I feel like it would be arrogant, and that helps make me bad at it. In my head, I imagine that once I say “thanks”, the person complimenting me for something would think “oh geez, look who’s full of himself?” I understand that’s probably not the way things would actually go down but knowing a thing and believing a thing are two different… things.

Consequence: when I try to accept a compliment, I clumsily try to leave escape-routes or couch the acceptance in conditionals so I’m not boxed into some awkward situation. This, of course, just makes things more awkward.

Me: “You get that thing I sent ya?”
Them: “Oh yeah, nice work! I really like how it turned out, you did a great job on the UI.”
Me: “Tha-.. uh… you too.”
Them: “What?”
Me: “I mean… you did a great… job at testing it, I really appreciate that.”
Them: “…thanks?”
Me: “welp… see ya later!”

It’s excruciating, in trying to avoid being a pretentious ass who just accepts compliments as if they’re my due, I end up being a weirdo who people hate talking to.

On the plus side, there’s something I’m good at. I mean, making normal conversations awkward or accidentally breaking the normal flow of conversation might not be typical On-Purpose Skills, but I can nail it every time.